answer. He’d processed a photograph showing the rape of an underage girl and kept it quiet in return for a hand job from that same young girl. Bradshaw made a mental note to reckon with that guy before this was over.
At Bradshaw’s urging, Callie screwed the metal grille back in place. By now she had convinced the detective she wasn’t making this all up. ‘Can we get the picture?’
‘I think so.’ But she didn’t sound certain.
‘Come on, we’ve haven’t got long,’ he said, ‘and grab your bag.’ He didn’t want anything to delay them.
‘If I can get the photo,’ she threw the bag on her shoulder, ‘you can’t leave me here.’ The fear in her eyes was genuine.
Callie was right not to trust anyone. Once that photograph was filed as evidence its presence could be leaked; then someone might try and silence Callie.
‘Get me the photo and I won’t leave here without you,’ he promised her, ‘but hurry.’
She sprang from her bed and rushed to the door, but paused while she leaned out to check for Dean’s presence. When she was satisfied he wasn’t there she whispered, ‘Come on,’ and led Bradshaw into the room next door, which used to be Diane’s. They already knew it was empty thanks to the grating, but Bradshaw wanted them to be in and out of there straight away. They couldn’t afford to let Dean know about the photograph.
Callie went to a corner of the room and dropped her bag. ‘Lift me up,’ she said to Ian and angled her head towards a ceiling tile that looked like all of the others.
Bradshaw heard Dean’s door squeak open. ‘On my shoulders.’
He bent low and the girl clambered on him, then he straightened with her on his shoulders. Wasting no time, she pushed the ceiling tile upwards and it came loose. Callie moved it to one side and reached in. ‘I can’t feel it,’ she said. ‘It’s not there.’ She sounded panicked.
She looked down at him then. ‘Move me,’ she demanded and he walked in the direction she indicated so she could reach another tile, which she pushed upwards before scrabbling around beyond it once more.
Bradshaw knew Dean would be there any moment and he didn’t want the carer to find him standing in the wrong room with a young girl on his shoulders. ‘Got it?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she hissed back, ‘over there.’ She replaced the second tile and waved an arm once more so he could steer her to the opposite corner and another ceiling tile which she pushed up. ‘It’s not …’ She didn’t need to finish. She clearly couldn’t find the photograph. Not for the first time, Bradshaw wondered if she had made the whole thing up. Even if she wasn’t lying about the existence of the photograph, it wasn’t here now. Someone had taken it. Diane maybe, or perhaps someone else had found the incriminating evidence and destroyed it. He could hear Dean’s footsteps coming closer.
‘Take me back there,’ she demanded and he realised she wanted to try the first ceiling tile again. His first instinct was to say no, particularly when he heard Dean’s footsteps draw even closer.
‘Be quick then,’ he whispered and he let her have one last go at the opening behind the first tile.
There was a knock at a door then and Callie was still scrabbling around above him.
A second knock, firmer this time.
He was about to let her down when she said, ‘Got it.’ It must have been pushed too far back for her to reach at first.
A door opened then and Callie was still on his shoulders.
She withdrew an envelope and he lowered her to the ground as swiftly as he could without dropping her.
‘Callie?’ Dean’s voice, close by but muffled by a wall and sounding confused. ‘What are you up to? Where are you?’ Dean was in the wrong room. Naturally he had walked into Callie’s room, not Diane’s, and this had given them precious seconds to retrieve the photograph. ‘Detective?’ shouted Dean. ‘Where are you?’
‘Just a moment,’ called Bradshaw as Callie straightened her clothing then he noticed something. ‘The bloody tile,’ he told Callie desperately when he realised she hadn’t put it back properly and there was a noticeable gap in the ceiling.
‘Shit,’ she hissed.
‘With no time to put her on his shoulders, he grabbed Callie round the waist and hoisted her into the air like a ballerina. She stretched out an arm, pushed up the tile then let it fall back snugly into